Kakasaku drabbles
by Yusagi
Summary: A collection of Kakasaku themed drabbles. Ratings range from G to M, character deaths etc
1. Chapter 1

_"Hero, it's a nice boy notion that the real world's gonna destroy."_

__By they age of thirteen, no shinobi worth their headband should believe in childish notions like 'heroes' or going out to seek fame and glory without any repercussions or loss along the way. People in this world should know by the age of thirteen how rare happy endings were, and just what sort of 'happy' endings they could have even then.

Most of them didn't.

At thirteen the promise that _'soon, everything will go back to the way it used to be'_ sounded perfectly plausible and reasonable. They were all family, all a team and teams stuck together _forever_, for _life_, didn't they?

When her trusted sensei told her something with a smile '_I won't let my comrades die_', '_Everything will go back to the way it used to be_', Sakura believed him without question.

At sixteen, when he smiled, it never left his mask. She didn't believe a word.

_Heroes_

Her friends were all heroes now, to be remembered forever for saving the world, not a single person would forget their names perhaps ever again. If anyone ever did, they need only walk out to the plaque of heroes and read their names.

_Naruto Uzumaki_

_Sasuke Uchiha_

_Neji Hyuga_

_Tsunade Senju_

_Heroes_. Her friends were all heroes, that was all anyone in the village would say these days—all about how they knew the Konoha heroes as children, how they always _knew _they'd be something, how the Senju line had ended as proudly as it began.

A gloved hand touched her shoulder. Konoha's living legend, the man hailed as a hero for killing his oldest, closest friend.

He didn't smile. He didn't say a word of comfort, and not one promise of heroics or happy endings.

At seventeen, she believed every word he didn't say.


	2. Chapter 2

"I'm not about to die either until I know the village is safe." She smiled pleasantly at him, summoning the full force of her confidence and strength into that smile. It was a smile she'd learned from him a long time ago, though he might not ever have known that. The smile he'd given on their first real mission and the smile he'd used to encourage her when Naruto and Sasuke fought. Even if what he said hadn't always been true, the smile had always inspired her, and so she returned it to him now. "Kakashi-sensei. _Trust me_."

For a moment, the both of them were silent, locked in a battle of wills no one at all had time for.

Although he still didn't speak, the grip on her arm released, and he turned away, starting with renewed purpose toward the other side of the village. They didn't have the time to argue when the village was crawling with Akatsuki intent on killing everyone until they could find the last jinchuuriki. The only thing they could do was buy time until Naruto made it back, and the only way to even try to do that was to split up and ensure they found each Akatsuki member in time.

Still—something stopped her for just a moment, and she called out to his retreating form. "_Ka_—"

…No. She was right, after all. There really was no other viable strategy and therefore no time to discuss it further. She bit her lip instead, and shook her head. _Don't die_.

That was the first bit of advice she'd gotten when she'd said she wanted to join the academy and become a shinobi like her parents: _don't die_. It was the most common piece of advice she'd heard so far. She didn't need to tell _him_ it, of all things.

She shook her head once again as he disappeared from sight and sprinted off in another direction, toward that of explosions. As it turned out, 'explosions' wasn't the proper word for it. There wasn't any explosive outbursts or flame, simply explosive _force_, originating from a flaming-orange haired Akatsuki standing in the street. _Pain_, wasn't it? The one who'd killed Jiraiya.

At least he wasn't the one Kakashi found. Or any of her other friends. No, she was glad she found this one: if anyone would hold this monster back until Naruto got there (he'd be here any minute, they'd sent a toad after all) she _wanted _it to be her. That way, no one else would have to be risked or sacrificed.

Strange, emotionless eyes stared at her as if trying to discern whether she might secretly be Naruto, before he spoke. "Tell me where Naruto is."

She frowned and gripped her fists at her side. "If you want to know that…then you'll have to _kill me _first."

When the man lifted his hand toward her, expression devoid of anything but a vague mimicry of disdain, she smiled.


	3. Chapter 3

He'd lost his head for a second. Only a second. But that was the way of shinobi, wasn't it? That was the reason they'd beaten in to each and every student at the academy that true shinobi killed all emotion and buried the remnants deep inside where no one could touch.

She didn't know who the ninja had transformed into, the young woman didn't look familiar at all to her, but she'd been a reflection of something from Kakashi-sensei's memory, just like all of the previous versions of the attack had been. Although he'd recovered faster from the surprise than the victims they'd seen and heard of…he'd been _off_. He'd hesitated when he shouldn't, barely perceptible even to her, and attacked with a slower jutsu than he should have.

He missed the cloaked secondary attack until it was too late.

"_SENSEI_!" Even though she'd screamed out the warning, she'd already been running by that time. Of course she was, because even with the warning he wouldn't have been able to dodge it.

She couldn't, either.

The rain of poisoned senbon struck exactly as it was meant to, simply not on the target it was meant for. But that was fine, because now that the surprise attack was spent, the ninja was forced to flee, and Kakashi-sensei would be able to deal with him easily. It'd been their plan all along, although the 'plan' had been for him to resist the genjutsu and simply dodge them instead.

Ah…ah, well.

Shinobi were meant to improvise.

When her legs gave out, a gloved hand seized around her shoulder, supporting her. It was a nice gesture, catching her like that…but it wasn't necessary. Most of her body was already numb, so it wasn't as if she'd have felt it even if she did fall.

She didn't mind though. She was happy. Not to die, no one would be happy to die, but to know her team captain and sensei did still care. She knew he did, of course, she knew he valued his comrades greatly, and she'd taken from him that same ideal. Still, there weren't many moments they could spare _as _comrades for each other. He was always so busy with missions for the village and her other teammates (they were such troublemakers it was a wonder they didn't keep his hands so full he never slept) and she…she had things to do, too.

For teammates, they never really had time to do things that other teammates did. She never had the time to request him to help her with jutsu (Sasuke and Naruto needed him more, anyway), they were usually assigned separate missions given Kakashi's skills and the state of Team 7, and neither of them had the time or inclination to waste evenings at the ramen shop or barbecue (if they had time, there were others who always needed their attention more).

The point was, it was nice in those rare moments when they could affirm their old team's connection. No matter how long it had been, no matter if she had another master now, he was still her sensei after all. That was a worthy excuse to give up her life for him if nothing else. What kind of a student would she be to allow her sensei to die in her place? What kind of a medic would she be if their roles were reversed and he were the one dying in _her _arms?

That wasn't how she wanted to remember her sensei anyway.

This was much better.

She leaned her head against his shoulder and sighed. It probably would have been some comfort if she could feel it, just as the words he spoke would have been if she could hear him.

If she'd attempted to speak it would have been slurred unrecognizably due to the numbness of her tongue and the state of her hearing. Instead, then, she simply smiled at him. Her expression could do just that: _express_ herself. _Gratitude_, so much gratitude for everything he'd done, for choosing her, for training her, for giving her all the chances she probably hadn't deserved at the time. For showing her the way ninja were supposed to be.

Contentment, if not happiness, that she could do this: that she could save him as he'd so often saved her instead.

Satisfaction. There were few better ways for a shinobi to die than fighting for and protecting their village and comrade. She could be satisfied she did her job well.

…What was the word?

There was a word she wanted.

It was like companionship, she thought, but that wasn't it.

It was like affection, but that wasn't it.

It was like respect, but no, that wasn't it.

What was she thinking about? She'd forgotten.

…

…There was a word.

…Thankful.

She was thankful. Had she thought that?

What did she want to express?

…

It seemed…very important.

Hm. She couldn't remember. Maybe it wasn't important.

She would have sighed, if she had any control of her body left. But that was fine. She didn't really need to. She'd done all she needed to.

For…

Oh, that was it.

_Her comrade_.


	4. Chapter 4

She didn't often go and visit her team captain at his home. Generally if she needed him for something he'd either be mysteriously 'missing', or show up wherever she happened to be looking because someone always seemed to tip him off (she wasn't sure who, but she suspected it was Captain Yamato).

Occasionally she did need to go by his place though, and she barely bothered to knock when she did. She figured if he couldn't be bothered to lock his door he obviously didn't value his privacy _terribly much_.

In this case, however, she really, _really _wished he did.

_Were those gogg—_nope! No she refused to look.

Instead, she quickly turned around and slammed his bedroom door behind her. "_YOU'RE A NINJA, LOCK YOUR DOOR!_"


	5. Chapter 5

At the end of a war, she expected to feel numb. Primarily she expected to be sore and exhausted, but to all the losses around her, she expected to be numb, either due to all her training in shutting down her emotions like a good shinobi, or due to the shock of however many losses she'd inevitably face.

It was probably too much to hope for.

A good shinobi knew how to control their emotions and discard the ones that would do nothing for them, but what kind of a friend, what kind of a student, could discard the memories of their sensei and walk away from their loss without grief and without guilt?

He deserved better than that. She deserved to suffer the guilt of recounting the ways she could have and didn't save him. In the end, they'd both get what they deserved this way.

She stood alone on the hilltop, looking down at the stone of heroes, and she wondered whether someone like Kakashi would have preferred to see his name there or in the field of shinobi who lived out their lives to the end and died peacefully.

If she could perform Edo Tensei, maybe she could ask him that herself, but any interest she could have had in gaining information from the dead as that jutsu might provide had been soured and lost in the war. Good may have come from the jutsu in the end, but to use what resulted in his death would only be an insult, particularly after they worked so hard to free the souls enslaved by Kabuto's thoughtless jutsu.

There wasn't any other way of getting an answer out of a stone, so although she asked him from time to time, while she crouched down and kept him company on lonely, quiet days, it wasn't a thing she'd ever find out.

The silence never did stop her from visiting.

She didn't read him his book, because that would just be embarrassing for both of them, and he probably extracted the sequel from Jiraiya long ago if they ended up in the same place.

She still spent time with him all the same, though. Any day she was in the village, she always visited at least for a little bit.

She couldn't save him, wasn't there when he'd needed her most, and now she never would be. She'd never make it up or make it right again. Those were things beyond her power, after all, and it was thinking like that which led the two Uchiha down the path that ended in his death.

Sometimes she told herself she visited to keep him company, because a person like Kakashi Hatake shouldn't spend eternity lonely or alone.

The truth of the matter was, in the end she visited the stone because seeing the names of her sensei and her friends engraved in the stone front of her was the closest thing she had left to being with them again.


	6. Chapter 6

She knew it would turn out like this.

He did, too. That's why he'd stuck around when everyone else had heeded the warnings, and laughed with her instead of leaving her. He'd smiled and they'd made light of it, joking and pretending that there was a chance she'd control it long enough to matter.

For a little bit, she thought she'd started to believe she would.

It was such a nice fantasy to believe, after all. It wasn't as if she'd wanted to die, it certainly wasn't that she wanted to hurt anyone, either. She'd chosen to take the unstable seal and hold the beast at bay for a little while (on a flimsy promise that a master of seals would get there eventually) because she couldn't bear to allow anyone else to take it. She volunteered before anyone else could just to protect them, of _course _she didn't want to hurt them.

She didn't want to hurt Kakashi, either, so when he stated in no uncertain terms that he refused to leave, that he would be the one to stop her and no one else if it was necessary, it was happier to think that with his help and a confident spirit she could make it until the seal master arrived.

They both knew it would never work out that way. Not everyone was meant to be a Jinchuuriki, and not everyone could handle the beasts even with proper seals. With the slipshod, barely strung together chains around the Five Tails, even the best Jinchuuriki (maybe not the best Jinchuuriki, they had sealing magic of their own) would have eventually lost to the stampeding beast.

Before it happened, she could feel her consciousness straining, waning as the hoofbeat in her mind steadily drowned out her heartbeat.

He could see it, too. It must have been in her eyes, the strain and the loss of focus. She knew she was losing the moment his easy smile faded away into a look of grim expectation: a look of quiet sadness.

She didn't know what to say. She didn't know what a person was _supposed _to say in a situation like this, what was expected of her or what could be said in the time that she had left. She knew she was supposed to be spending her effort and her remaining consciousness on keeping it under control to give him and the other villagers more time to get away…but she knew he wouldn't.

Apologies slipped free.

_I'm so sorry_

_Sensei_

She wanted him to flee like the others, she wanted him to stop her, maybe to save her, but she was old enough to know no one could do that. Not even the man with a thousand jutsu.

Despite the fact that she was the one apologizing, and she was the one failing, his expression didn't show forgiveness or sympathy or sadness or pity.

As her vision burned away in the fiery chakra of the emerging beast, his expression darkened over with _guilt._

She wondered, in the moments she had in darkness, for the brief time her body could hold out with the transformation and escape of the tailed beast, whether his guilt was because he couldn't save her

or whether it was because he couldn't stop her.


	7. Chapter 7

One day she really was going to teach her sensei to stop overworking himself _every. single. battle_. He'd kill himself from chakra exhaustion if he weren't careful. It was surprising sometimes he hadn't. Sometimes she worried he didn't care if he did.

Occasionally she worried he wanted to.

She sighed as she looked over his vital signs, resisting the urge to peek under the carefully arranged sheet while he slept. _Someone _in this hospital knew what was under the sheet covering his face…but it wasn't her.

Eventually though, it would be her her turn.

Eventually.

She pursed her lips a moment, thoughtful, then leaned down and pressed a light kiss to his forehead. "Don't kill yourself before I get my turn."


	8. Chapter 8

This wasn't the way he wanted it, and she knew that.

Life didn't get to go the way they wanted.

She saw it coming before he did. His sharingan was otherwise engaged and the enemy was behind him, so of course she did.

She ran without a word, without a thought of doubt or what would be best for the village, or any other consequence.

He was her sensei.

She'd lost too many friends today.

She saw comprehension and shock in his eyes mingle into something like horror just as she brought up her arm and violently shoved him out of the way.

She isn't sorry.

Life never happens the way it's supposed to.

She'll get one thing right though, the most important thing he taught her, something she'd failed at too often today. She'd do _one thing right _today. When it counted the most.

_I won't let my comrades be killed_


	9. Chapter 9

She was turning into Gai-sensei.

She's never thought anything so horrifying in her life.

Still, her team captain was laid out on the ground due to chakra exhaustion for the umpteenth time, and while she'd stabilized him, she couldn't do any better without more equipment. And they were half a day away from any of that equipment.

He couldn't walk (or even stand, he was barely conscious), and there really wasn't any better way to carry him than on her back.

She loved and respected her old sensei…but she still really, really hoped he didn't drool on her shoulder.

"Just hold on, okay?"

Because the last thing she needed to treat when she got to Konoha was whiplash from jumping through the trees with him playing the part of rag doll behind her.


	10. Chapter 10

No one could really blame them for getting carried away. It's hardly unheard of after a war, and after five years of hardship, when they finally succeeded, finally defeated all of Madara's forces…they probably weren't the only ones waking up with dim memories of revelry and in a bed they didn't…usually wake up.

Where the hell were they, anyway?

Why did it look like the Akimichi's house?

….Maybe that's just…the less important of her current dilemmas.

More important was the sensei faking sleep who had carefully extracted himself from her when…ever he'd woken up before.

She should say something.

She didn't know what to say.

Maybe she shouldn't say anything.

She could leave, but she didn't know where they were, much less where her clothes were.

She could try to come up with something to say, but he'd continue to pretend to sleep, and she'd just make things more awkward.

He was still pretending to sleep.

After a few moments, she shifted closer on the bed and curled an arm around him—light and hesitant, watching for a sign of rejection, but he just continued to pretend to sleep. It was the closest she had to a lack of rejection or discomfort.

She pressed her forehead to his back and continued not to speak—pretending to believe he really was asleep.

It wasn't really a hug.

She wasn't really sure what else to do.

He continued to pretend to sleep.

She let him.


	11. Chapter 11

She mutters under her breath to him while they have a moment alone. "You're a _terrible _actor." He flat-out ignores her and continues to fake-ramble about ramen.

She jabs the needle into his arm extra hard.

He's so extreme that they're getting nowhere. If she were the patient this time they would have been making more progress…unfortunately she was an actual doctor and it's easier to fake mental illness than papers these people will accept.

Plus, the person administering the psychotropics also needs to be able to make untraceable antidotes, and that's hard while high as a kite.

He's kind of cute sometimes during the time between administering his dose and then curing him of it so he can _pretend _to gather information. She's pretty sure he's just reading or something, and it's not needles she'll be stabbing him with if she can confirm that.

He's cute and occasionally off-puttingly affectionate when he's high.

She has literally no idea how he managed to stumble across what they were looking for while fake-playing hopscotch with Kiri nin, but she knows he's lying through his teeth when he claims he planned it.

Getting a needle full of psychotropics jammed in _her _arm as unkindly as it just was…sucked.

Surprisingly, he actually paid enough attention to figure out how to synthesize the antidote she was out of (though not the untraceable nature she'd achieved) while he was pretending to be a bat one of those times.

They reached an agreement by the time they made it to Konoha: He wouldn't talk about any nakedness she displayed while high, if she didn't tell the Hokage that he sang dirty versions of nursery rhymes while he was high.

It was the smart thing to do.

The Hokage probably would have filled them _both _up full of needles if she'd known anyway.


	12. Chapter 12

Sai insisted it would be 'fun', or something like that.

It wasn't.

_Wow_, it wasn't fun at all. She was great at…lots of things and calligraphy she could handle just fine. Trying to get her hand to settle in a steady pattern to draw her sensei, though?

Apparently, an absurd request.

…

She squinted at the picture…turned it sideways, and named it 'Pakkun'.


	13. Chapter 13

It was clearly a cruel joke of the hokage to choose _them_ for the undercover couple. For one, he _refused _to take off the stupid mask even when undercover, for another, she was pretty sure he was going to explode from awkward sooner or later when she had to link arms around him or kiss his cheek or whatever it was she had to do to convince people that _yes, she really did marry this weirdo, don't question it please_.

She'd also definitely murder her favorite sensei if he tried to use it as an excuse to force her to make and/or buy him dinner

_one more time_.

Yes, if this was a joke, it was the cruelest. If this were punishment, it was unfair, because it must have been punishment for him (she hasn't pissed the hokage off any time recently) and yet she too suffered.

He was kind of a slob, he was depressing, awkward, idiotic, and she's pretty sure _intentionally the worst possible husband_.

It was a wonder he didn't purposefully throw it while they were in public, too. The disturbing part was how poorly he handled it when he was _presumably trying_.

Nothing, however, has she ever experienced that was so unnerving as the one day they spotted the mark they were hunting for that whole month.

It wasn't the way he got serious, or his brilliance as a shinobi when they dealt with him.

The creepy part was that, as soon as they spotted the mark (and as long as the mark lived from that point on), _he actually acted like a competent and convincing husband_.


	14. Chapter 14

His fingers were singed by his stupid jutsu. He had over a _thousand_ jutsu he could use at any time, and he insisted on using that one stupid jutsu and his sharingan instead. It was like he just wanted to hurt himself.

If he were almost anyone else, she'd smack him for that.

Instead, she just sighed, bringing up his hand to focus chakra into it and speed up the healing process of his skin there. When it was properly knit, she leaned down quickly and kissed the tips of his fingers.

"There, maybe now they'll stay intact."


	15. Chapter 15

She didn't know why or how he ended up hanging upside down by his ankle from the roof of the bath house. She didn't think she wanted to ask.

Mostly he just looked so disgruntled and helpless she felt safe to be impish.

That, she thought, explained why she interrupted his lengthy and calm explanation for why she should cut him down without asking with a peck over his mask.

In fairness he was _right there_. Basically she had to.


	16. Chapter 16

_1 year_

A year passes too quickly. It doesn't seem right to think the world's kept on running and new children are born and she keeps on living like nothing happened at all. It doesn't seem right that she should get to go on and nothing ought to happen to _her_ when _she _failed to save her sensei?

What sort of a student can't do a little thing like that? What healer lets someone so important to them _die_, and keeps on calling themselves a healer?

It's barely a word, a bitter hiss that she almost doesn't realize she vocalizes. "_It should have been me_."

_5 years_

Naruto has a child now. She thinks Kakashi would have been excessively exasperated to know the child was named after him. She thinks he might like the child anyway.

It seems right that she doesn't have one.

She still doesn't think she should be entrusted with another life after the ones she failed to save in the war.

She sighs softly, staring down at the stone. "…You should have been there. It's…probably would have been funny if you were there."

_10 years_

"Naruto was made hokage today."

She kneels on the dirt in front of the grave as usual, hands settled on her lap, and stares down at the worn letters.

In the distance, crisp black letters stand on a proud gravestone, placed with honor among the other past hokage.

Her fingers knit together at her knees, and for awhile she's silent, because she doesn't need to speak about who died. He would know.

Minutes pass in silence.

Finally she speaks. "…I'm going to have a child."


	17. Chapter 17

This was happening way too often recently, and she hoped her sensei could tell from the look she gave him as they sprinted through the unfamiliar town just what she thought of it.

There was probably some good reason behind it besides forgetfulness (because she knew full well it wasn't the size of his paycheck), but her patience with him was getting a bit thin. It seemed like every time they went to eat somewhere not in Konoha and she didn't have the money to cover them both, he just _sprinted _instead of paying!

"If you're testing how fast I can run out of a tight situation, Kakashi-sensei, you're not supposed to do that to _other jounin_!"

Instead, he'd done it every time since she became jounin.

Was this the reason only Yamato was ever suckered into eating with him?

If it was, that was a thing he was about to _stop doing_.


	18. Chapter 18

She's not really sure what got into her. They were just supposed to be faking it to look good for their mission. It's just the glimpsed out of the corner of her eye that they'd stolen his mask when they threw him into the room (it'd only get in the way in the dark) and the closet was much smaller than she expected. She'd felt his breath ghosting across her lips, making her tingle as they stood awkwardly and tried to think of ways to make it sound like they were doing things they weren't.

The darkness gave her the bravery to try the solution of 'not pretending', at least a little.

She's still not sure how the kiss ended with her straddling his lap, his hands gripping her hips and hers tugging his hair and head back to make him more accessible.

It was definitely just supposed to be a kiss.

She's really not sure how that became 'making out'.


	19. Chapter 19

So in review, she's definitely handcuffed with chakra chains to the bed, and almost certainly naked under the throw-pillow strategically placed between her legs. (One mercy is that with her small breasts, at least she wasn't sore from sitting there for awhile without a bra. She's just a little sore from sitting there for awhile.)

She's also apparently pouting, flushed, and looking directly not at him.

"…The key's under the pillow."


	20. Chapter 20

They knew this could happen. _They _knew, because _she _should have,but didn't. How could she? She was aware of the risks, she knew they could all lose, she knew she'd see people die, and she knew that people she cared about might be included in the people she'd be unable to help.

But him…

Kakashi Hatake was brilliant, experienced, powerful, adaptable, versatile, smart enough to know how and went to back off and escape, had lived through a war before already.

_Kakashi-sensei was supposed to be invincible._

Blood smeared all over her hands, squeezed through her fingers, ran down her wrists, spread through thick, useless cloth, soaked into dirt.

_There was so much blood._

Tears fell and mingled with the dark red on her hands, brightening the almost black to brilliant crimson where they touched, and she could barely see past the glow of her hands, futilely trying to regrow vital organs that medical jutsu was never designed to fix or repair.

_No, no, no, no_

She couldn't stop. She couldn't just give up. She had to _try_. She _needed _to. She couldn't accept this as the way things would end. She couldn't let him slip uselessly through her fingers after all he'd done for her.

_Not him_

"Please…" She hadn't mean to speak, hadn't thought about it at all, it simply slipped out, thick with tears, broken with the sobs that wracked her body like the pained shudders and labored breaths of her wounded (not dying, _never dying_) sensei.

"Please…please…please…_no…no…please…_"

_I won't let my comrades be killed_

**_I won't let my comrades be killed!_**

"I won't let you! I won't let you die,_ I won't let it! _No!_ I won't let you!"_

Her chakra burned, twisted, boiled inside her, flared out of her hands with an intensity that could have destroyed, should have destroyed, instead of healing. The wounds she hovered over finally sealed shut…and violent choking escaped him moments later, spraying fresh droplets of red across her cheeks and flak vest.

She couldn't…

She _couldn't_—

He was so weak. Fading so fast. She couldn't _do anything_.

When it counted, when he finally needed _her help_, she…couldn't.

After all the years, after all she'd learned and how far she'd gotten, when it really counted…she was still just the little girl on a bridge, clutching a kunai to her chest as if it would do anything, unable to help or protect the people important to her in even a little, insignificant way.

Her fingers dug into his jacket, and she hunched over him, as if shielding him from the world could still somehow protect him from the damage it had already done.

_Too late_

She's too late.

It's too late.

There's nothing left to say, no time left to say it in.

_Kakashi-sensei was supposed to be invincible_.

This…

was never…

supposed to happen.

Her screams were as silent as her sobs were loud, frustrated, helpless, painful.

"…_please…"_

_"…no."_


	21. Chapter 21

A thing she never wanted to do with her team captain (she refused to comment on 'ever') was a crash collision while they were both in towels. On the bright side of her crushed hopes, the towels survived intact.

On the other, her sensei was still half naked on top of her and _HIS HAND WAS ON HER BOOB._

Flat and lifeless due to dizziness or a careful interest in keeping the hand, but still there.

On the other hand she could move like, literally a centimeter from here and see under his mask. Did she freak out as she rightly should and get him away before someone came in or he realized where his hand was, or delay just long enough to solve the mystery and just risk someone coming in and getting the wrong idea?

Such a difficult choi—no she's _going for it._


	22. Chapter 22

She's not sure why, but kissing him on the face had always seemed too intimate. Either she had to wrangle with a mask she didn't really like kissing (and made the mask too much of the center of attention) or she had to expect him to move it to make room for her, and even if it was normally innocent skin, the slightly lighter skin tone made it seem like it wasn't, and that was just too much fuss for just her.

So.

It made sense to her when she wanted to show her affection, that she'd lean up and kiss his adam's apple instead. That, at least, he left exposed for the world to see.

It seemed much less intimate and trusting than anything involving his mask, anyway.


	23. Chapter 23

A girl needed a little relief every once in awhile, even when _usually _she was way too busy with working until she dropped to do anything about that need. Every once in awhile there was an exception, though, and usually she found a pretty good place to do it (usually her room when her parents were…out.).

It was just a freak occurrence that she happened to give into temptation in her cozy room on a mission instead.

She didn't have any of the tools she'd assembled back home, but she was…well they weren't _completely necessary_. Which had the unfortunate effect of her…not…realizing immediately that someone else had entered the room. She only noticed once she opened her eyes again and—

G a h.

Froze.

That probably wasn't the _smartest _thing to do, while the goods were up and proudly displayed, but give her some time: she's busy processing her shock so she can be properly mortified.

—-

…

Oh,_ there's_ the shriek.


	24. Chapter 24

The world was ending and that. Sucked. However, that didn't mean they couldn't do something before then. In a way, knowing all they had left was a month was liberating, when she refused to allow herself to think about things long enough to get depressed about it.

One thing was ninja being allowed to travel freely. There was no point in keeping their ninja at home when no one would live longer than a month anyway.

If nothing else, at least they could go and see all the sights and sounds the world had to offer before they were gone.


End file.
